Before you read this post, I want to say that this is entirely my own opinion, and I'm just making a couple (a lot) of suggestions based on what I would do. If you can find a reason that you'd prefer to ignore me completely (there are bound to be plenty
) then feel free to do so.
Also - It's going to be long, because I like to explain my decisions at every step and comment on changes I personally would make.
Parry is an almost entirely useless skill, since you can only block one attack every flurry. Unless you have insane ac and concealment, you wouldn't want to waste your time with it...even then, I'd rather have improved expertise up than parry.
Plus, you have epic dodge.
Also...I would take blinding speed a lot sooner (drop a great dex for it), and take epic prowess in it's place as a bonus ranger feat. Haste from items is absolutely terrible, when you could have 2 casts of a 25 round haste much much earlier. If you dropped the two bow foci, you could take ambidexterity and two weapon fighting, and your other spare great dex feat (if you dropped one for blinding speed) could go into improved TWF to get you an extra attack per round.
I might also drop 2 dex in the starting stats, and put the extra points into Con and Str (Str to 10 or so, con for the rest) because without hips you will die quickly in straight combat with low hp, since places to corner sneak are quite rare, and it's easy to counter (move into an open space). If they get a lucky couple of strikes, you could die right there before you have a shot at healing or running.
Disc without a strength bonus is useful to have to stop standard mobs kding you, but if you were to take hips instead you could avoid the whole issue by hiding.
Also - You can't wear any armour, since it'd limit your dex mod to 8 at best (and you get 20, so unless you have padded armour +11 you're better off with robes), though the ability to use shields and some of the ranger specific gear is handy, most of the stuff you would need could be UMDed.
Your assassin death attack paralysis only strikes when the target is out of combat, so unless you can hide again quickly it's going to be no use to you once you start fighting - the int boost is useful for poisons however: you can get a very good DC with 26 assassin levels plus 14 int mod.
If you dropped two more great dex, you could take dodge and mobility, and then take SD at some point in the build. Assassins CAN use darkness to get death attacks, but I wouldn't rely on it too much - there are plenty of UV items, and continual flame can grant permanent UV. That 20d6 death attack damage is a powerful tool, you'd be silly to throw it away in the middle of a battle by not being able to hide.
I'm don't think that SD will be nerfed...it's been left alone for a while now, and if it was made harder to hide then I would expect a LOT of items to be removed/edited to lose TS from them, because even now hiding is very difficult since a lot of people have TS on almost every toon they make. Cloaks of eyes or Barad Dur Hawkeyes are probably the worst culprits, but there are plenty of others.
Including all of my suggestions (which I'm not saying is a good idea, I'm just doing this as a visual aid), you get this:
Ro13/As26/SD1
Halfling (since you can't use a tower shield, I did this to get good starting stats)
Str 10
Dex 18/32->44
Con 14
Wis 8
Int 16->28
Cha 8
1 R Weapon Finesse
2 R
3 R Ambidexterity
4 R
5 R
6 R TWF
7 R
8 R
9 R WF Short Sword
10 R Defensive roll*
11 R
12 R Blind Fight
13 As
14 As
15 As Imp Crit Sword
16 As
17 As
18 As Imp TWF
19 As
20 As
21 As Armor Skin
22 As
23 As
24 As EWF Sword
25 As
26 As Gr Dex*
27 R Epic Dodge* Imp Evasion
28 As
29 As
30 As Dodge
31 As Mobility*
32 SD
33 As Blinding speed
34 As
35 As
36 As Gr Dex* Epic Prowess
37 As
38 As
39 As Gr Dex
40 As Gr Dex*
*Rogue or Assassin Bonus feat
This build would lose Disc, but gain Hips, drop toughness (loss of the ranger bonus feat) and get prowess. It would lose 3 ab and ac from the lowered dex (32/44 not 38/50), from starting stats plus half the number of great dex feats, but it would gain another attack per round (making 7 with haste, so 3 shots at a paralysis upon engagement).
Because of the requirements for epic dodge, SD would have to be taken quite late, so I fitted it in as soon as I could.
If you dropped ANOTHER 2 great dex, you could take epic skill focus move silently and toughness, but I really don't think that's worth it. That's entirely up to you though.
You could also trade your sword focii for bow focii if you wanted a sniper, and take toughness instead of weapon finesse.
As Azure said (after I was nearly done XD) - your ab is going to be fairly low, compared to a standard hitter, and your normal damage will by ABYSMAL (because you're a dexer) so going toe-to-toe with another fighter is really not the tactic you want to choose, because you're almost certain to die. Dexers need trickery, like ranged weapons, hips, monk speed, or traps, because they simply can't compete in all-out combat. By all means, you don't have to be cheap and spam hips as fast as you can, but you're never going to survive a full fight with a proper fighter unless you paralyse them. The DA damage is very powerful (20-120, plus normal weapon damage), it would be a waste not to use it.
Feel free to use or adjust this build, or ignore me completely, because I already have my own assassin which I'm quite happy with, and this entire chunk of text was written purely out of interest.
^_^
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